This panel will introduce three types of individuals that the missionaries encountered in the various stages of their missions. As news of the earliest Asian missionary activities spread and was discussed in Europe it sparked students’ interest in Asia, transforming theology curricula and students’ lives. The changing perception of the worlds beyond Europe’s shores by these students ultimately reshaped the organization of future Asian missions. The first presentation will explore both the content of the missionaries’ education and how the demand for overseas missions, particularly in science, affected their curricula and school environments. It will also contrast the training of college students who opted to go abroad with those who chose to remain in France. The second presentation will examine the surprising relationships between French missionaries and English maritime traders at the turn of the eighteenth century. While the missionaries had local knowledge and networks of contacts in Chinese ports acquired from their earlier colleagues, the English traders were able to offer seaborne transportation, the delivery of letters, and financial services. Despite confessional differences and national rivalries, the two groups frequently fostered unexpectedly cordial relationships through the exchange of information and services. Finally, the third presentation will shift the focus to the mission field of seventeenth-century China, exploring the intellectual debates of Jesuit missionaries regarding dream interpretation. The Jesuits critiqued the Chinese interpretation of dreaming that was rooted in traditional Chinese medicine along with Neo-Confucian and Buddhist philosophies, and proposed a Christian perspective through the lens of Catholic theology and the emerging scientific and medical ideas from Europe during that period.